The reason for this is it will keep the correct edges hidden since MAX doesn't support
true quad polygons. This means when you import the "true" quad polygons MAX will make it into 2 triangles with the middle edge hidden.

Mapping will probably only make sense if you have an intermediate sense of the material editor and uvw mapping. The toughest part and also the down side to using polygons is they have no UV mapping coordinates. So, you must apply mapping coordinates to them.

For complex shapes you can use multiple UVW gizmos. For the rex I used many. A few I used are: a planar for the side, top, bottom, front etc. You can give these UVW gizmos unique ID's so when you apply maps you can tell which map goes with which UVW gizmo.

Basicly you want to layer maps on top of each other to cover up the stretching. For instance the side planar map will stretch on the top and front. You want to cover it with a map projected from the top using a mask so it doesn't streak on the sides. It may take some experimenting to grasp what im talking about. Here are some screen shots that will hopefully help with the idea.

Using composite material you can layer maps with masks in between them to control the different layers transparency Notice the stretching on the front in the first screenshot and notice the stretching on the side in the second shot. We can fix this using a mask to control where Front map is transparent.